A life spent helping to conserve nature

Hazel Althofer has an amazing story to tell. Not only was she integral in establishing the Burrendong Arboretum, but at 92 years old, she's still heavily involved with conserving some of our threatened plant species.

Perched on the shores of Burrendong Dam near Wellington, the Burrendong Arboretum is home to over a thousand species of native plants.

It's a wondrous natural world.

It all began in 1964 when brothers Peter and George Althofer joined forces to start the project, which has bloomed into a beautiful natural haven for plants and wildlife.

92-year-old Hazel Althofer is the wife of Peter.

While her husband has passed away, she continues to potter around the arboretum helping out.

"I had lived on the land and we'd always be out on our ponies. The country was different to what it is now," says Hazel, reflecting on her early childhood growing up near Wellington.

Hazel and Peter met at a woolshed dance in 1938, and were married in 1940.

"After meeting Peter at that dance, war was declared in 1939, and everything changed so much," she says.

"(Peter) was a great plant lover... and he would've likely joined the Air Force, as he was very keen on flying."

But Peter didn't enlist because he worked at his family's orchard; and as they were food providers, they were exempt.

"Peter had a brother who had this dream about an arboretum," Hazel says.

"He used to talk loud and long about that and eventually was offered a piece of land on the foreshore of Burrendong Dam.

"George had the vision, but not the capacity to develop. Peter knew that George wouldn't be able to do it, so between them, they got it started. In the early days of my life, I became involved," Hazel says.

While the war years changed life in Australia, Hazel says the Althofer brother's dream began to take shape.

Hazel reflects on the type of man Peter was.

"The person who wrote his obituary when he passed away said, 'Peter could turn up at a black tie dinner in his working clothes and he'd never be out of place.'

"Teachers used to bring their school children out and Peter would to treat them exactly the same as he would treat adults.

"The last picture I have of Peter in the arboretum is of him kneeling down beside a garden bed with a group of about ten little children all around him.

"He was very good with people," she says.

Hazel says while she's 92, she plans to continue working at the arboretum for some time to come.